Outstanding

Ok, I'm back to the world. It's been a crazy week.

Dlc and I survived the trip to LA (and yes, Meridith, the Pain of Memory is too fresh) Or, I have too much stuff to do to mess around on my blog, as much as I miss it. We drove over night twice and slept probably 10 hours in 4 days. And my goodness was it HOT. Too bad we were too miserable to take pictures or there would be lots of pictures of me huddled underneath the van trying to exploit the only shade in the marsh. There are no trees in marshes, only sticks in mud. It is Hot. Sometime this weekend I'll give a detailed report of oil and my trip to Grand Isle, LA.

In other news, we had our last GS meeting of the year--the one with awards and sappy speeches. Guess what? The Service Unit (which is the organization of troops in a geographic area) awarded me an Outstanding Leader pin this year. How awesome is that? It's pretty amazing how good a little enamel pin makes me. It's nice to be recognized.I'm not going to take it off for at least a week.

Deepwater Horizon

I just want to point out that that name sounds like an Airplane Novel title. How appropriate. That's not even the reason for this post, but it's related. Keep reading:

I've been running to school in the morning. It's a nice 4.somethingish mile run and it feels less pointless than driving to school and then running, or running in circles near my house and then driving. It's a nice run that has a beginning and an end which are in two different places and a large bridge in the middle. It's a nice route. After my run I took a shower and got dressed. I keep a stash of clothes in my desk now. The drawer to my left here, the one that isn't full of papers, though it should be, is a nice dresser. Then I drove out to main campus to take care of some paperwork. Always paperwork.

When I got back around 11 I ran into a Frantic Dlc. I didn't think that he wanted my data analyzed THAT bad, I thought "sheesh, I'm gonna do it, I'm doing it now". But then he surprised me "We need to go to Louisiana this weekend, like, today".

I'm not sure what these people were up to for the past month or so while the oil has been gushing out of that pipe and slowly working its way towards the Louisiana estuaries, but This Morning it became imperative that we get over to LA as soon as possible so we can catch fish Before the oil hits and kills a bunch of them. Assuming it kills a bunch of them.

The idea is that we can get genomic samples from before oil and after oil to do some cool evolutionary/population genomic work. The oil may be hitting our collection site tomorrow so we're in a big hurry now to get over there and get the fish out of the water before that happens. I'm gearing up for my second overnight drive to LA this month. Here we go! Don't know when I'll be back. Some time.

Peace!

How Awesome is this?

These pictures are from before I took the blue tape off. Looking at them now... I'm kind of thinking that instead of touching up with white paint, I'll touch up with dark blue because that looks AWESOME and even more comic book like with the POP of the dark border.

I have to touch up because like a dummy I painted with a wet roller and then the paint like seeped under the tape. Gross. There is a learning curve to painting.

Left to my own devices

Laura was racing on Sunday so I was home in the morning all by my lonesome. I decided that it would be a good idea to paint another wall. The bedroom has a weird little doorway that's basically like they cut the corner off of the room so that more doors would fit into the little alcove between the living room and the back rooms/bathroom. There are five doors in a little space. It is sort of like a house of mirrors, or one of those nightmare houses where you run and run and open one door after another and then they just lead to more doors. Or maybe that nightmare is unique to me. Anyway so the doorway has its own little diagonal wall that's only slightly bigger than the door. I painted that wall turquoise put a huge lightning bolt on the adjacent long wall and then finished up by painting that same long wall turquoise up to the half way part, with a white border around the lightning bolt there. As soon as I find my camera I'll post pictures but for now use your imagination. It kind of looks like a comic book, or a dorm room (that's what Laura said).

I finished that by 10, Laura was home by 11 and then we went shopping. I bought these AWESOME new shoes. They're called Lunarlite Racers. LUNAR! I think they're designed by NASA! (or at least Nike masquerading as NASA) They weigh something like 5 ounces for the pair. I test drove these a few years ago before they were officially released and when I was still a member of the Nike Running Club. I've been dreaming of them ever since (good dreams, not like the nightmare house of endless doors dreams). The best part about them is that they look like bowling shoes. Oh, and they're comfortable. I was so excited about getting them that I ran to school this morning, and then wore them to step aerobics tonight. They're HOT HOT HOT.


Evidence:


Did I mention that they weigh like 5 ounces? That makes them perfect camp shoes for backpacking. It just doesn't get any better than that. Well, the only thing better is the fact that I'm having an awesome dinner and listening to even more awesome musicl.


OK, guess what I'm eating for dinner.

Did you say "Ramen with peas and mayonnaise"?

You did? You're Right!

Now, guess what song I'm listening to. Right now!

"Adventures of Isabelle" from Natalie Merchants kick ass new album "Leave Your Sleep" It's an Ogden Nash (!) Poem set to music. It goes like this....

"Bear said 'Isabelle glad to meet ya! How do Isabelle, now I'll Eat you!'"

Summer

Ahh, summer is upon us here in Miami. Everywhere I go I can hear and see the signs of it. People with large sweat stains on their shirts, cars with the windows rolled up, the steady ear-splitting drone of the air conditioner, everywhere the pitter-patter of little flea feet, and Laura in the kitchen yelling "Get out of here cockroach, no! no! no!"

Summer is early this year. It's HOT. Is this how Miami is going to even it's average temperature out this year after our hellish "winter"?

The most beautiful thing in the world

I have a really really nice back yard. It's not totally fenced, but Scott is getting better and better about not running willy nilly through the neighborhood if I turn around for a second. There have been a few times that I've had to run around and ask the neighbors "Pero Negro? Pero Negro?" and they point and such and pantomime a stupid looking dog running around with a leash on. Obviously I've always found him after he runs off. After the last time he made a break for it I went and bought a long rope and kept him tied up to the mango tree anytime we were out. Recently he's been showing some interest in playing fetch so I've been letting him off the rope some.

It's nice that the dogs have a place to run around, but that's not even the best part about my back yard. This is:


Go ahead and ignore the telephone wires and nasty invasive vines. Look right in the middle, at those glorious dangling blobby things. Those are baby mangoes. In a few weeks they will be ripe mangoes and they will begin falling to the ground in the most glorious state of ripeness. I think that ripe mangoes right off the tree are what angels eat.

Here's some other pics from the back yard....

The dogs got bandanas from Weird Florida. It's a show on PBS where a guy and his dog drive around Florida looking for weird stuff like the Skunk Ape or Two Egg Florida. On their website they offer doggie bandanas for free if you promise to send back a picture of your dog wearing one. We had a little photo shoot. Aren't they adorable?





This is the hammock I bought for Laura in New Orleans. We only have one tree so I had to modify it to be a seat, since I could only hang it from one branch, and that one branch is only so long. Looks comfy, wish we had two!

PEEPSHI

Sometimes I wonder if I have too much time on my hands... Let me tell you though, the combination of rice-krispee treat and fruit roll-up is amazing.

Lame Saucery at the Annual Film Fest

My kids made a "docudrama" about tomatoes for the annual film festival. It was mostly un-factual. For instance, did you know that the biggest tomato ever was 65 feet long? and that they are the Fruits of New Jersey? Or that the varieties of tomatoes include the Higher-loom? It was super cute and they did everything themselves from start to finish.

This afternoon VK, who helped them make the video with her super awesome editing skillz, and I drove over to the film fest and eagerly awaited their jubilant arrival.

And they didn't come, and they didn't come, and they didn't come.

I called one of the moms, because I had a suspicion that they were all together at her house celebrating one of the girls' first communions. "Hi, how are you?" I said. She took a deep breath and waited a moment before saying "Ohhhhh, right.... well, umm... I have company over and the other girls are here, but they're waiting for their parents" Ok, thanks for letting me know. I call a few more parents and get the same answer. Which is fine, I know that life gets in the way and sometimes they can't make it to activities. But are their fingers broken? Can they not call me? Because trust me, the highlight of my weekend wasn't sitting through 4 minute videos of kids messing around with video cameras.

VK and I decided to stay because well, the film was set to be shown and why not hang out and see what the other kids had come up with. The videos were alright, one group of kids did a really nice video about the possibility of ghostly-hauntings in Coconut grove. I don't think the kids themselves made that video, but it was pretty fun to watch.

At the end awards were given out. I walked up to accept my girls' award and felt kinda dumb. I asked if I should give an acceptance speech and the little girl with the microphone pulled it away from me and said "No!" I took it and thanked the academy anyway. Nice kid, nice.


**photos by Veronique Koch

Fun and Merriment

Two totally unrelated images, for your entertainment.



I'm all ready for my talk, we're at T-2 hours now, I think I'll go clean my fish tanks. Dlc says he likes my plain black title slide better, but I think that this one will set the mood nicely:

And 2nd: the set list from THE BEST SHOW EVER. courtesy of Aimee (who I met in line at the concert and now we're facebook friends/BFF, because we shared Bignets at Cafe Du Monde.) My new favorite Ani Song is "If Yr Not" because she says "If you're not getting happier as you get older than you're f*ing up" Ha Ha! Indeed.

Science Poetry

Well, Meredith did it first and best but here's my attempt at Science Poetry:

How does mRNA expression relate to protein function?

What we want to know,
is how does the process flow?
From mRNA to protein
How can we easily gleen
The value of one and the function of the other?

Does protein compared with gene expression
produce a significant regression?
And is mRNA a master
Variation, producing proteins that are faster?

Or what if they are not related?
This question is being hotly debated
I will describe for you a chapter
Where I look into some of the factors.

KT came over for dinner/talk practice tonight. She said she liked my talk. Now I'm not so nervous. Watch out MBF I'm gonna knock your socks off!

Isn't Grad School FUN!!!!

Let me attempt to sell you on Grad School by describing my Tuesday:

First off, I finally roll in around 9:30 which is later than I wanted to be there, but if I'm home when Laura comes back from her bike ride I am compelled to wait for her to shower and eat second breakfast before I drive in. To do otherwise would be mean. Usually I'm out the door but because I was still recovering from my marathon driving weekend I was still in my pajamas at 8:45 or whenever she got in. Oops. By the time I got to work DLC had already killed 3 fish and hadn't saved me any livers. Humph. That's okay, I'm reworking my protocols anyway. After nearly a year at the same grind you'd think that I'd have this enzyme assay thing all wrapped up by now, but no. Grad School time is 1,000 times slower than real world time. Or maybe it's just me.

So I made some new reagents. Because if I know one thing about molecular biology it's this: When stuff isn't working, your stuff is probably contaminated/yucky/sabotaging your experiments. So, I made new buffer, new poisons (just in case THOSE go bad) and new water (we make that too). Then, I pulled a Complex IV assay kit out of the freezer and prepped that for a go at testing whether the mitochondria we're preparing are really even intact. Turns out they are and running an enzyme assay that worked was a real morale booster even if it wasn't for the enzyme I love to hate: Complex I. I was buoyed by my success and decided to have a go at Complex I quantification. I used some of the tricks suggested by the Complex IV assay kit. I mixed the master mix at room temperature, I initiated my reaction with NADH and I used the same protein concentration that I used for the Complex IV assay. It was a disaster. The absorbency data were all over the place, it looked more like a jack-o-lantern's mouth than a nice even, linear, slope.

At this point, when I've spent all day of spinning and pipetting and thawing and homogenizing and freezing and standing on my head while spitting nickels I throw up my hands and say IT DIDN'T WORK! And I vow to try again, might work next time. Like, maybe, tomorrow 'cause damnit if I'm not DONE for today. Yesterday was different, I had the sweet taste of technical replicates with no variation and huge differences between my experimental and control slopes. I had it goin' ON! I could do it! So, I tried again with 10X protein concentration and would you know it? IT WORKED! For the first time EVER my slopes looked like what I expected them to.

Ahhh, I breathed a big sigh of relief and rushed off to a meeting. I was driving back to the lab to get some more assays under my belt when Laura called. "Have you seen your email lately?"

"Uhh, no I've been out of the office" She knew this...

"You're giving your student seminar on Friday" She had heard through the grapevine already.

I can never catch a break. Instead of celebrating my assay success and repeating and repeating and repeating while dancing and rubbing some good juju on my spectrophotometer to keep the good times rolling, I'll be chained to my desk trying to recreate some crummy talk I started working on in November. What am I supposed to say? Why is this important, I forgot a little......

Happy May Y'all!

Hey! I made it back from NOLA. That means New Orleans, Louisiana for anyone who Doesn't Know. Now that I have visited the city properly (a muffaletta and a 10 minute stop doesn't count) I can join the club of people who use moderately obscure acronyms for cities. (so far I've got SOBE and NOLA. Gotta collect them all!)

The Ani concert, as usual, was amazing. I will spare you the grueling details but here's a quick recap:

1. Gloria actually talked to Ani. LJ and I were buying beer at the grocery store. My mom was right about how drinking ruins your life.
2. Ani walked between the security barrier and the stage before the show, so I kinda got my own up close encounter.
3. She played 4 new songs! I'm waiting on a set list and I'll let y'all know what they're called. She also played a killer "who's side are you on" remix of an old labor song that she did for Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.
4. Long drive!


Pictures coming soon! Stay tuned!